My job as a writer is to free myself and therefore you. Before the mind starts shoving God aside, I let the words fall where they may upon the screen. We all want to be screen stars after all, but our stars are in the heavens.

My job this lifetime is learning acceptance. I had a letter from a saintly teacher, Dr. Raynor C. Johnson. In it, he told me to “accept, accept, accept life. Thank God for what you have learned about love from your suffering.” And this is my day job on planet earth. I get no money for it. I am doin’ time, as is everyone else. I eat from the tin plate and drink from the tin cup of mortality. One day I will be released, but that seems to be in the far-off distance.

And in the meantime I share my broken-open heart right here and now. It has many patches on it, some good and some bad. I still have too much self-defense, which my ego thinks keeps the pain away. It doesn’t. What does lift the pain is when I write.

When I was a toddler, my mother kept a bandaid on a boo boo I had incurred when I fell down. It became infected from lack of air and she learned a lesson. She needed to take the bandage off. Just so, when I write, I am airing out the wound so it can heal.

Poignancy seems to be interwoven in every word I write. This is due to a severe case of loss. Sometimes I have it under control; at other times it erupts onto the page. Strangely enough, airing it out helps readers here and there.

You are not alone. I was not alone as I watched the little white and gold casket be lowered into the ground. I am not alone as I type my way out of the wilderness of thought. For that precious child is at my side, only wanting one thing for me. To be happy. And writing makes me happy. It is my way of sharing a love that has seemingly disappeared. In reality it is powering the universe of the heart.

Vicki Woodyard